““turned the knob and looked into a large, bare room, made homelike by several sagging secondhand couches and gay circus posters brightening the mildewed walls. The fat lady filled a couch like it was an armchair. A diminutive woman with a black curling beard spread across her demure pink bodice sat engrossed in a half-assembled jigsaw puzzle. Under a dusty fringed lampshade, four curious misshapen humans engaged in the familiar ritual of draw poker.””